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My advice. I made it very specific, but of course you can take and leave whichever parts you want:
Start by re-creating this website, with better architecture and minor improvements, but no major new features. First list all the features of this website (posts, comment trees, upvote/downvote, context, user profile, followers...), then come up with an architecture, then implement it, then copy all the data from this site onto the new one, then deploy it on https://beta.themotte.org and let mods and volunteers test it, then replace this site with the new one. Feel free to use Claude for everything, not only to implement the copy but list the features and maybe even plan an architecture etc. He is very useful as long as you make sure to go over everything he does and improve it to your standards. Again, don't implement any major new features until it can replace https://themotte.org.
Do exactly what Reddit has done with subreddits except where you've noticed issues, specifically the ID/name thing. That is a textbook example of great design: extremely simple (low code maintenance cost and user-facing, you don't even have to mention it exists) and fixes a real problem without any real downside.
Accept that this forum may not grow much so there may not be many communities here. Maybe you can create separate ones for the recurring threads: Culture War, Tinkering, Wellness, etc. Or maybe keep the Motte one community, and create a separate spin-off that has multiple.
If you create a spin-off, ask yourself: why would someone join my forum instead of an alternative, or create a community instead of a subreddit etc.? For example, maybe you can make a game dev spinoff that's better than existing game dev subreddits. Make sure to advertise why wherever you promote it. I recommend any politically-correct spinoff be an entirely separate from this non-PC one. I don't think lack of interoperability will be an issue. Speaking of...
IMO, most attempts at federation are a "solution in search of a problem". I recommend adding all federation features ad-hoc: only when needed, as simply as you can. In fact, I recommend this for all features that don't already exist on this old site.
For example, if someone wants to link a post from another instance of this forum (which implies you succeeded enough for there to be two instances), they may simply create a post whose URL is that of the post from the other instance. What I would do, is tell people to do that initially. If it becomes common enough to be worth spending maintenance for better UX, I would add official support so that, when the website sees a link to another forum instance, it displays it as a fancy "crosspost". The website can even pull comments from the other instance's post, and let it provide authentication credentials, then push local comments to it (making both posts effectively the same)...but only after crossposts are first implemented, if by then it seems like it would be useful.
Similarly, if someone wants to create an account on another instance, they can create it with the same username. If they want to show that they own both accounts, they can add a PGP key and list both instances in the account bios. "Federation" could be adding explicit support for this: if it's common enough, split the "bio" into "bio" and "PGP" (you can migrate the database), allow instances to store a list of "federated" other instances, and then for example, when someone follows a user, the server can notify them if not only the local account posts, but any account with its PGP key on any instance posts (possible by the instance servers pinging each other any time a user posts, just to alert followers on other instances).
Unfortunately, I'm skeptical this would work out. Why would people trust you to host their site (instead of Discourse etc.), especially when if they really trust you they can simply create a community? But I think the bigger issue is you will not want to host the instances of people who ask you. There are two big issues: 1) these people aren't technically proficient (or they'd self-host), so they'll constantly ask you for small fixes and threaten to move if you don't help them; and 2) these people will sometimes get into trouble with law enforcement, unless you moderate them the same way you moderate your own site. All these issues raise the question, why not just host the community yourself?
If you truly want to give others peace of mind and absolve yourself of responsibility, then make your forum software open-source and self-hostable. You can make it easy to self-host by creating a Docker container, which is deployable to a VPS in basically one click, and I don't think you have to worry about making it accessible for complete laymen, because the only people who will try to self-host are technically proficient (others will just make a community on your or another host).
Ultimately, communities succeed or fail by their culture, dictated by moderators and members, more than technology. The "Foundation" you have on this site can be the default for new communities, but trying to force their moderators to adhere to it is pointless at best, because if the moderators suck the community will fail.
You already proposed what I think is the proper solution to bad moderators: give admins (yourself) the power to rename a community to something niche and create a new community with the old name and new moderators. I'd recommend letting moderators police their own communities mostly hands-off, with three exceptions: 1) obviously if they do illegal stuff remove them, 2) handle moderator disputes like "rouge moderator removes everyone else before they can remove him" however you feel is best, and 3) if it's a community you really care about, make yourself a moderator (which tells members that you will interfere and enforce your Foundation, and if they don't like it they can create their own spin-off).
The Fediverse is the principled direction to take here. I imagine a bridge service could be created. Lemmy for example is federated and it's also basically a reddit clone, so the data plane should be compatible. When the exodus was being prepared by @ZorbaTHut on the OG /r/TheMotte I brought lemmy up, but its aesthetics were worse, and my spare time was negative.
ETA: Since code is free, maybe we can link up to Bluesky too? I recall some grumblings that the TheMotte is too right of center
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So I'd actually take this a step further; what I'd do would be to freeze the DB schema, reimplement it on top of the same DB, and then make changes from there. No copy required and it lets us do a gradual changeover and even a backpedal if needed.
Yeah, absolutely agreed. I think there are improvements to be made, but Reddit works, we'd just start there.
Yep. It's quite possible that it just ends up dying an early death. Such is life.
So there's a few reasons I really want federation.
Part of it, I will acknowledge, is as a kind of moral pillar. I don't like vendor lock-in. It sucks. I don't want to be part of the problem.
Then another part of it is so I can kick subcommunities off without feeling too bad about it. Getting kicked off Reddit is nearly a death knell; getting kicked off Gmail simply isn't. I don't want to be in charge of delivering those death knells, and the easiest way to avoid that is to make sure they're not death knells.
A third part is that in theory we can link up with other groups like Lemmy. I dunno if that would actually work out, but I like the concept, at least.
If they make a "community" community, they don't own it, we do, and we'd be pushing the "foundation" thing. A lot of people will be fine with that and never run into issues! Not everyone though.
But also, it's a single integrated site. A lot of people don't look at The Motte simply because it's not Reddit; they have all their links in one place. There's a number of other forums out there that maybe I would join, but I would never look at, because I don't want to add another stop to my rotation. So "we'll host your site and add it to people's comment notifications" starts looking relatively attractive.
Absolutely! :)
So, a note here. I'm not suggesting having a single metamotte-wide Foundation (well, okay, I am, but not one that specifies rules), and I'm not suggesting holding other people to the Motte's foundation. I'm saying that at some point they are required to write something reasonable - which I'd help with - and that they will then be subject to it. It's not "force the moderators to adhere to it"; it's "if you cannot adhere to it, you will not be moderating this community anymore", and then we elect new users out of the community.
But this is only if they really are breaking the intent of the community. If it's a young community without a foundation, or a private community, fine, whatever, we'll just rename it elsewhere and let someone else scoop up the namespace.
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